2015 Theory of Art

The conception of the Renaissance in Russian and Western art studies was to the large extent creation of Modernist discourse. From Heinrich Woelfflin’s nietzschean classics and Walter Pater’s aestheticism to Clement Greenberg’s “Eliotic Trotskyism” and Hubert Damisch’s “Maoism” Renaissance art remained testing ground for the latest ideological and methodological strategies. The Renaissance was phantom pain of Modernism caused by the lost and impossible alternative to the capitalist reality. The main avant-garde myths, categories of superhuman and extrasocial, principles of historicism and catastrophism were tested on the material of Renaissance art through the production of new cultural products, which received such tried and true labels as “Raphael”, “Leonardo”, etc. Eminent art
historians, Lionello Venturi and G. C. Argan, A. Chastel and P. Francastel, M. Dvorak and H. Sedlmayr created new forms of reception according to the rules of Modernist discourse. In this situation we should speak not so much about the rehabilitation of some mythic “true” Renaissance — the very formulation of a problem looks naive — but about the necessity of deconstruction of those complex rhetorical and philosophical systems which contributed to our understanding of the past. Russian “Silver age” with its diversity of “extremist” approaches to Renaissance art (from Dmitry Merezhko­vsky to Aleksandr Gabrichevsky), varying over a wide range of ideologies and life styles (from eli­-
tism and dandyism to proto-fascism and shamanism) is also a remarkable example of Modernist invasion into scientific sphere, the consequences of which could be seen in Soviet and post-Soviet art criticism.

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The paper aims at critically assessing two main connected topics. On the one hand, the theoretical, philosophical and epistemological underpinnings of the concept of historical otherness that is an essential condition for the construction of the “Renaissance” as an epoch-making, aesthetic and artistic category. On the other hand, the enduring resurfacing, in recent scholarship, of the very concept of otherness, indebted to the philosophical background of Panofsky and his forerunners, a debt often overlooked even within those projects — Visual Studies, Visual Anthropology and similia — fashioning themselves as breaking with traditional art history.

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In the age “after postmodernism” studies of post-Renaissance art go beyond the traditional history and are governed by the rules of the systematic interdisciplinary approach. In the second half of the 20th century the development of structural linguistics promoted the emergence of post-structuralism. Here the classical “world view” is interpreted as a transition from chaos to order. The purpose of this new method is to study phenomena and processes as dynamic self-organizing systems. It is assumed that the laws of self-organization are universal, meaning the transition from lower to higher forms, and therefore applicable to the study of classical art and culture. Thus we can call the art systems “dissipative” (from lat. dissipatio — “dispersion”). The features of dissipative structures were first described by I. R. Prigogine in 1947. According to him, a part of the energy of regular processes can go over to the energy of irregular processes. Therefore, in the so-called non-equilibrium systems unexpected qualitative leaps can lead to a more complex internal structure. This is true for the artist’s behaviour and for the structure of creative process. Works of art represent a unique fusion of universal laws, individual characteristics and unpredictable factors. This understanding of art is essential for the “Theory of progressive cyclic development of art” by F. I. Schmit. The article shows the prospects for further development of this theory.

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Chronological typology is a version of the dynamic system as description of developing integrity. It is based on genre as type of artistic image — an ideal element of artwork encoded in the material. Artistic image forms a necessary core at all levels of genre typology, starting from unique artwork, whose properties are intrinsic to all levels of the system, up to the artistic image of the world. In actual artistic process every genre is characterized by special form and content, has a necessary and sufficient composition of figurative elements, which are connected in special structure, and fulfil its inherent functions. Primary elements of the artistic image at all levels of the system are the images of man, society, civilization as the second or man-made nature, divine nature and perfect spiritual reality in inexhaustible variety. Genre chronological typology is a hierarchical dynamic system, whose properties are manifested to different extents in various art forms, genres, genre associations (systems). The process of genre creation is similar to individual artistic creation. Genres and genre systems arise in response to external challenges, develop according to internal program (code of self-development) and under the influence of impulses of multilayer environment (context). After creation of a special artistic image, they continue their development in the individual and collective perception. Local genres in the system are adjacent to the plurality of intermediate or transitional forms of genre. The theoretical model of genre chronological typology was tested on the material of Russian painting of Modernity. This model: (a) provides a system of options for the research of individual genres and genre associations (the term of G. K. Wagner) in their growth and development; (b) makes it possible to describe all the complex of the world art as a coherent genre system in its diversity of types; (c) identifies the intrinsic logic of the artistic process and endogenous factors of art development.

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The world of objects in visual art as subject of semiotics can be regarded as integral system, with its own structure, hierarchy, laws of combination of parts, features and functions, as well as the ability to change and “to be transcoded”. In this context the “world of objects” is defined as a set of objects of the material world, depicted in works of art. Whereas the world of objects is a sign system, we can talk about the language of objects (representation) in art and its communicative function.
The semiotic approach makes distinction between the object in its usual meaning and the depicted object as part of the sign system.
The aim is to identify the range of issues in semiotic interpretation of the world of objects and to identify the features, functions and structure of the system, based on the semiotic studies of Yuri Lotman, Roland Barthes and other scholars.
The world of objects represents a subsystem in the system of visual arts. It can play a major or subordinated role in different genres and be of various relevance for the semantics of particular image. For example, the insignia and marks of honour depicted in a portrait indicate the status of the portrayed person. The set of objects may create a semantic field: skull, clock and fading flowers in a still life stay for vanitas, but in genre painting clock may not have memento mori meaning. Thus an important factor is the context, overlapping and interpenetrating elements of adjacent systems in terms of semiosphere.
According to Yuri Lotman, any part of the semiotic structure bears the mechanism of reconstruction of the entire system, therefore analysis of objects depicted in a particular case can produce a basis for understanding the general principles in representation of the world of objects. In our case study we will examine the world of objects in satiric graphics by William Hogarth, both in the context of Rococo and British Enlightenment.

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Through a re-reading of the positions of the major figures of the art historical and theoretical debate about the problem of the pictorial representation of space, including the particular case of the sacred space, the present paper aims at examining the strategic “perspectival” implications of the radical interpretation of the Renaissance alleged “discovery” of pictorial perspective offered by Pavel Florenskij. In particular, I will focus on the somehow hidden ambiguity of Florenskij’s project, especially crucial within the operative concept of “reversed perspective”, aiming at defending the substantial difference of Byzantine and Eastern conception of pictorial space, but also drawing on a methodic approach that is typical of the point of view of Western art history and criticism.

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This paper deals with titles in visual art, the subject mostly overlooked in Russian art studies, where titles are sometimes examined in the context of image-word relations, but never for their own sake. Tit­les have an uncertain status in visual art and their part in interpretation and perception is undefined.
Our thesis reviews the works and methods of literary critics and western art historians and aestheticians. On the basis of these studies, we try to prove the significance of titles and to establish them as an integral part of the work of art. We refer to such authors as French literary critic Gerard Genette and Russian writer Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, whose primary purposes were to define a title, categorize it and describe its functions. A number of articles in the American Journal of Aesthetics and Art Critics raise other questions: what is a true title? How to qualify a title? What is the role of the author? What happens when a title changes? Our study summarizes sparse opinions stated in different disciplines and introduces the ideas of western authors to the Russian audience. To test the applicability of their methods in visual arts we use examples from Russian painting.
We came to a conclusion that a title, considered to be a true one, always has an impact on perception. This is easy to prove on several cases: “Empty Space”, “The Last Tavern at the City Gates”, “They did not Expect Him”, “A Motive with no Words”. However, this impact is not always recognized, since we do not consider the title a significant part of the work. Thus, it is essential to analyze the structure of the title and the title-artist-viewer relation. The main purpose of this study is to set out the basic questions related to title and to make the first step towards the formulation of study methods.

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The concept of information and other relevant concepts originating in information theory and cybernetics became increasingly popular in the Soviet humanities of the 1960s and 1970s. Without directly relying on the humanities, Slava Gerowich in his well-known book From Newspeak to Cyberspeak, regarded the spread of popular metaphors and ideas originating in cybernetics so overwhelming that they could be determined as one language uniting different fields.
In April 1959 the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union established an academic council of cybernetics. It was precisely the council that joined cybernetics, structuralism and semiotics on the official level. One of the most significant events was a joint symposium on 19–25 December 1962, organised by the Moscow Institute of Slavic Studies and the research council of cybernetics on the structural research of sign systems (so-called Semiotics Symposium). An impressive booklet of theses was published with the print run of one thousand, and that very publication later became the grounds for attacking the organisers of the subsequent symposium. Half of the print run was shelved and the press published numerous critical reviews. According to the theses, the organisers had undertaken a much bigger mouthful than previously fitted under the cover of cybernetics. E.g. the entire section was involved in art semiotics, which was the first time such a topic had been tackled in the Soviet Union and also in the development of cybernetics.
The main hypothesis of my presentation is that while structural semiotics and linguistics were quite comfortably able to penetrate the Soviet sphere of scientific research under the shield of cybernetics, then, as soon as semiotics started to manifest its interest in the sphere of art, it became ideologically suspicious. Concerning art history, this was amplified by an anti-abstractionism and formalist campaign that was carried out at the same time and which has, regarding the realm of culture, been considered as the freezing point of the previous “thaw”.

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Understanding media as objects and technologies which provide transfer of experience in culture and other spaces of material world leads us to the idea of special periods in culture — transitive time. Our present time is the best example of transitivity. Nowadays the large number of media are generated in mediaspace, which has its own semiotics and lines of extention. This developed matrix of media gives us the chance to transform the traditional exhibition forms in museums, because it changes radically the aesthetic project of museum.
Manifestation of cultural and semantic diversity in contemporary museum representation is not possible without media technologies. The core of media technology is the concept of new media as a way of re-understanding media. The comtemporary art and museum spaces represent us the world of new media through video-art and different types of installations. The main goal of media technologies in contemporary museum is to present a special place for art in multicultural and global-thinking world, thus revealing the features of museum in the changing world and for the new modes of perception.
The project is supported by Russian Foundation for Humanities, grant № 15–04–00400a

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Two artistic movements that are called today School of Sidlin and Temple Wall School represent a consistent line in the development of visual art in the 20th century — beginning of the 21st century. Its origin is the oeuvre of Osip Abramovich Sidlin (1909–1972). Sidlin was a remarkable pedagogue and philosopher who not only taught his students the craftsmanship but also introduced to them painting as plastic art and philosophy of existence. When he was a student of the Academy of Arts Osip Sidlin visited classes of the leading masters of Russian avant-garde: A. Savinov, K. Petrov-Vodkin, A. Os’merkin and K. Malevich. Following this experience Sidlin created his own art school and to a certain degree his own style. Since 1935 Sidlin taught at the graphic studios in the Kapranov House of Culture and at the Ilyich (Lenin) House of Culture in Leningrad. The pre-war period of the School of Sidlin was called “Inspiration from the Old Masters”. 1949 marks the second phase, called “The Dark Period”. The third period lasted from 1960 to 1967, called “Inspiration by Distemper Art”. It is defined by contrasting bright colours. Severity, force and tension were replaced by restraint and tranquility. The works of Sidlin’s students reflect the finesse of wall painting, make apparent the weightless and unearthly beautiful colors and the velvet softness of noble and almost pastel shades. Then comes the time of the fourth period, “A la Fresco”, that lasted up to Sidlin’s death in 1972.
The essence of the School of Sidlin is most precisely set forth in his own words, “Back in the old days there was the wall painting but then bourgeoisie and lower middle class promoted the easel painting. The latter is in fact degradation of art. (The real) Painting is a wall (painting).” After master’s death his student Y. Nashivochnikov brought together the young artists and they set up a new school called Temple Wall School. These artists turn away from the compromise of easel and monumental painting and go back to the monumental painting, considering this the main trend of the School of Sidlin. Artistic and aesthetic principles of the works of School stem from the traditions of Byzantine and ancient Russian wall painting, thus revealing the actual merging of contemporary and eternal.

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